Ice,Ice Baby! Ladakh’s Chadar Walk

 It isn’t full moon yet. But even with the half moon that has
receded well behind the steep walls of the gorge the frozen Zanskar shimmers
flecks of light.Listen very carefully and you can hear a gentle gurgle of the
flowing river under the Chadar that is a few feet thick. Fix your eyes on the
bottled horizon and you can see sparkling reflections of the flowing river.

You can scream and your scream will echo through the landscape. May be the
porters, settled in a cave on the other bank of the river, over their Chang
fuelled brain will also reply “Julley”. You may even try to own this
patch of sandy land that you are walking on and no one will challenge you.
Heck, you might even hear the demon’s laughter reverberating through these
walls. At times, you may get a vision that the Chadar has ceased to exist. At
times that wind might bite you to the skin through the layers of sleeping bag
under which you have cocooned yourself. 

Welcome to my story of the Chadar! 

Dibb Campsite, 24th Jan (4th Day)
Evening.

The draft of wind that crosses over the camp fire brings along with it the
smell of burning junipers that crackle at times like marijuana seeds. Away from
the circle of trekkers who have settled around the fire, I try to rest the
camera on a piece of rock to get a shot of the gorge that’s sparkling in the
night and think about how far and away from civilization we really have been
for the past 3-4 days. The campfire, for us, has become a habit and every
evening we would settle in a circle, drying the clothing that had gotten wet
during the encounters on the Chadar. 

Let the weather not be emphasized here. It is incomparably cold, for in
mid-Jan, its not uncommon for night temperatures to dive 20 degrees below zero.
And in the depth of winter, legend says that ice as thick as a goat’s rib can
support the weight of a yak. Nothing survives such hostility. But ask the
porters and they will say that the Chadar gives them everything – caves to
live, water to drink and firewood to keep warm. They worship the Chadar and
pray for its sustenance, since, apart from this highway of snow, there is no
way to travel from Padum to Leh in winter.

Three days back, when we stepped on this highway of ice, many
of us learnt walking on it for the first time. The initial mile was dusty,
solid ice that provided great traction for walking and you can literally walk
like you are walking on a tarred road. But then the nature of the road changed
to smooth and shiny glass like and when the sun rays fell, it was too slippery.
There was no need to plod, for, movement was aided by inertia. And when such
shiny,glass like ice was on an incline, it could prove to be a heady cocktail
for a fall. 

The first day was also the shortest one. A 2 hour bus journey from Leh took us
to Shingra Yokma, from where commenced the trek. And our rendezvous with ice
was immediate. So, with the backpack hanging from the shoulders and a camera
hanging around the neck, hands resting on a trekking pole and wearing gumboots
of the most uncomfortable kind that was purchased barely 24 hours ago from Leh
market, I started the march.

A walk of 2 hours brought us to a place called Shingra Koma or Shingra Upper,
where we rested for the night. Hot khichdi and tea – both of which got cold
within minutes – were our late 4 PM lunch. And rest of the evening was spent in
star gazing. Dinner was slurped up at 7 in the evening. And night was spent
with 3 layers of woolen garments and 2 sleeping bags.

I have never slept well in a tent.Sleep is always
intermittent…in ‘batches’. I sleep for sometime, sometimes wake up shivering,
pull the sleeping bag all the more closer. Sometimes that helps, kother times
not. The next morning after a breakfast of Tibetan bread,jam and cheese and
‘kawa’ we started walking again.The next morning after a breakfast of Tibetan
bread,jam and cheese and ‘kawa’ we started we started walking again. And during
the day, discover a few things.

One, is the lack of the presence of sun rays. You can see that the skies
are blue, the tip of the hills that border the gorge are lighted up by the sun
– all good – but the gorge itself lies in permanent shadows and there are only
a few places where the sun rays actually fall on you – the trekker.

Two, the Chadar trek gives a very limited set of colours. Sky and the
river is blue, ice is white, the rocks along the gorge are yellowish brown to
purple. And thats it! 

Three. The crowd of trekkers. Generally trekking campsites have sparse population.
But in this trek, at any given moment there are hundreds of trekkers. Campsites
are bursting with crowds. And that brings the question of the ‘load’ being
faced by the fragile environment. The extra bit of kerosene that wasn’t
required, the food that was wasted, human faeces – everything goes right into
the river. 

We have pasta for lunch – pasta cooked in a pressure cooker with a cocktail of
spices consisting of garam masala, sauces, cumin powder,fenugreek – name it and
you will get it. Hunger is subdued due to lack of taste, but somehow I force
feed myself.

In the evening, around 4 o clock, we reach Dibb. And spend another
night under the stars. 

One of the reasons that makes the Chadar unique is the terrain and climate.
Talking of the ‘trek’ aspect – its not a trek. Rather its a walk on a gentle
and undulating river.The Zanskar and its Chadar, the cold and the gorge walls
at times attain a form of permanence that its impossible to escape them even
after a month of getting over the walk.

This is one trek where I found that the journey itself triumphs over any
attempts at photography. It is not a picturesque trek, nor does it have any
vistas that are worth framing/composing – for, the landscape is the same – a
river frozen along a gorge and rocky hills that surround it – the pattern
almost the same or repeating over multiple places. 

A trip like this, inspires to write….again, I have not tried to answer
questions through this travelogue. Perhaps it will leave you with more
questions? Perhaps. What is the first day itinerary? How many hours was
travelled? What was the distance? What are the starting and ending points?
(will willingly answer in case you have any). I have tried to avoid that
because what I am trying to write is a story about the Chadar and the
experiences it provides: You can see porters carrying 50 kg weights; places
where the Chadar is only a couple of feet wide and so slippery that you will
hesitate multiple times before taking the next step and right besides you will
see the river gushing at full flow; and then, there are places, where the Chadar
hasn’t formed and you have to climb over rocks where a fall would mean you
hurtle 30 feet down to the river. 

That night, as I sleep, I think about the next day which would be the day we
see Nerak’s spectacular waterfall.

 Nerak.

Apart from being the final campsite in the ‘abridged’ Chadar trek, Nerak is also convenience. There are chances you can get a bite of frozen yak meat or a hot drink of rum or sip the country liquor, Chang. But, in order to reach Nerak you need to overcome the most difficult sections of the trek. The initial few miles out of Dibb the Chadar feels solid. But then, there comes a turn, where we cross the the river from one side to the other and as we cross, we hear a loud boom and a crackle – the indication that the Chadar just broke somewhere.

That day, we have our lunch seated on the river banks in one of the rare places where the sun beams down. At this stage we were sorely missing maggi. Because the taste of food had gotten bland and I wasn’t liking it at all. 

As the miles close towards Nerak, the road gets riskier with several exposed and deadly portions. The weather also becomes foul with a lot of cloud and cloud is bad for the Chadar because it increases the risk of higher temperatures. Half an hour before Nerak comes a tall but thin waterfall where we pause for a while to take photographs and regroup. 

Walking on further, we reach the Nerak campsite to find that reaching the Nerak waterfall is more difficult as the Chadar was badly broken in a number of places. So, the way further is to climb a high hill and that was a knee wobbling walk with dangerously exposed sides. A couple of feet as you look towards the left you can see the broken Chadar 500 feet below. It gave be head spins so much that I decided that not an inch I would go further. But such was the guide that he picked me up and told me ‘Sir, its possible’ and possible it was. It took half an hour to go uphill and reach a flat plateau like hill top and a further 20 mins downhill to get back on the Chadar and reach the Nerak waterfall.

A crowd of minimum 70 people were standing and posing at below the fall. I too had my moment. The water is frozen, but as I noted elsewhere too, its not entirely frozen, for you can feel sprays of water droplets falling on you when you stand under it. And the feeling of having concluded the journey wasn’t happiness, it was relief! A little further away from the Nerak waterfall site was another frozen waterfall. But that hadn’t gotten famous – poor luck   . 

And at a corner was a suspension bridge that connected the village of Nerak to the road that the Government is constructing.It will take a while, but in a few years the Chadar, even if present will become redundant. A way of life will become non-existant and will be lost permanently. Already, village elders rue the fact the younger lot are not only ignoring their cultural values, dresses, traditions and food etc. but also they are ignoring reading the nature of the Chadar. But such things will remain I believe and is a case of a strong debate. Personally, we know that older lot in every corner of India feels that the culture and traditional values are getting eroded as we move forward with time and technology.

But one thing needs to be understood here – for us trekkers – we had gone for the guided trek for ‘exploring’. But the Chadar is a NECESSITY in winter when it comes down to the locals. Without it they won’t be able to move an inch.

Walking can take you to places where mechanized transport fails. And whereas this means it can take us to ‘raw’ and ‘virgin’ places, it exposes the lack of development, harsh quality of life and its struggles; and spurs the “necessity being luxury” debate. Yet when we return from these places, the first of impressions is ‘how simple, accommodating the locals really are’. Many of us who work in steel and glass buildings, follow certain protocols of communication that we have acquired during the stint of professional life. But those very things which we follow at work, are things which we often shun when we go to these difficult and under developed places. How paradoxical is that? 

Core ingredients of human nature e.g. Greed, Hypocrisy, Lust, (Dis)honesty, Selfishness etc. are present everywhere – in Ladakh’s Nerak village as well as Calcutta’s Park Street but where I smile with glee when I meet these village people is how open, candid, frank and welcoming they are! And with every second that BRO’s bulldozer breaks down the rock walls and ‘civilization’ enters these places, may be, we will loose what we are seeing now. 

My mother had visited Darjeeling quite a few times till the 80s…much before the separatist movement began and spent a few vacations there. But every year when I pay my annual pilgrimage of Darjeeling and request her to come with me – she says she won’t. For her, he already holds an image of Darjeeling – the Chowrasta, the sparse population, persistent rain during the monsoons,sheep and goat milk sourced from the nomadic herders, post cards and letters carried by a single motor car that chugged its way daily through the mountain roads pottering through the forests. Verdant and virgin. When she looks into those black and white vignettes, it’s a very natural progression for her to place those ‘lost’ moments of yore into todays map but history, unfortunately, doesn’t repeat.